Discovery Trail

Mary Burton - Psychology

Our School of Social Sciences explores a range of research areas from business, accountancy and marketing to languages and intercultural studies. One area is psychology, where they investigate lots of brain-related things. For example, they study language, memory and how people learn. They also explore things such as how we perceive our own bodies - investigating bodily awareness, posing questions such as ‘how do we know where our hands are if we close our eyes'? 

Some of the core research focuses on how to keep your brain sharp as you get older, helping people age in a healthy way and exploring ways in which we can nurture our brains as we age. We work with a whole range of people of different ages and backgrounds to make sure our research is useful and relevant. Some researchers also look at how changing things in the environment people work in could help improve productivity and wellbeing at work.  

Research Bite

Find out more in this Research Bite video of Professor Alan Gow, whose research specialises in cognitive decline (changes in our thinking, reasoning and memory skills). Alan's team explore how keeping engaged in mental, social or physical activities could be potentially beneficial to keeping your brain young. You can find out more about one of these projects on the Ageing Lab website.